Earth’s Resources for Year Used in Less Than Eight Months

This year, humanity has exhausted its quota of ecological resources faster than nature could replenish it. People are putting more carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, outstripping Earth’s capacity to absorb it; felling trees and catching fish faster than nature could restock them.

As a result, the world has reached Earth Overshoot Day today – August 8, 2016. Now, for the rest of the year, we will fall in to ‘ecological debt’ by drawing more resources than was allocated to humanity for the year.
Earth Overshoot Day is calculated by the international think tank, Global Footprint Network, which measures the world’s demand for resources against ecosystems’ ability to supply them. In 1993, Earth Overshoot Day fell on October 21. In 2003, it fell on September 22 and last year on August 13.

In 2016, to meet the consumption demands of its current population, India needs 2.6 times of its current ecological resources.

According to the network, greenhouse gas emissions account for 60 percent of humanity’s ecological footprint. In order to meet the goals to tackle climate change, the world’s carbon footprint must fall to zero by the second half of the century.